Professor Pérez-Arriaga has been the Interim Director of the African School of Regulation (ASR) since July 2022. He was a Commissioner at the Spanish Electricity Regulatory Commission (1995-2000) and an independent member of the Single Electricity Market Committee of Ireland (2007-2012). He was also a member of the Board of Appeal of the Agency for the Coordination of Energy Regulators (ACER) in the EU (2011-2016). He has been Director of Energy Training at the Florence School of Regulation, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, since 2004. He has worked in the areas of dynamic analysis of power systems; monitoring and diagnosis of power system equipment and systems; intelligent computer design of industrial systems; planning and operation of power generation and networks; regulation and restructuring of the power industry; and sustainability of national and global energy models and access to electricity and regulation of the power sector in developing countries.

He has served as a consultant to government agencies or electric utilities in more than 40 countries. Ignacio is a member of the Spanish National Academy of Engineering and a Life Fellow of the IEEE. He has published more than 200 papers, has been principal investigator in about 100 research projects, and has supervised 40 Ph.D. theses on the above topics. He was a Visiting Professor and Senior Lecturer at MIT (2008-2022), at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), where he is now a Research Affiliate.

He holds MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from MIT and an electrical engineering degree from the University of Comillas in Madrid, Spain.